By Jeremy Harness

AP photo: The Sacramento Kings DeMarcus Cousins (15) drives to the basket past the New Orleans Pelicans Terrance Jones (left) and Omer Asik (3) in the second half of Tuesday night’s game at Golden 1 Center

SACRAMENTO – In discussing his role with the Kings, Willie Cauley-Stein also painted a vivid picture of a team trying to find its way in the NBA.

“You’ve just got to play through adversity, and you can tell what type of player you are when you go through something like that,” Cauley-Stein said. You can either go the negative route and say, ‘(Expletive) it, I’m not with this, I’m just going to go into a shell,” or you can say, ‘I’m going to prove myself, I’m going to come out of this hole.

“That’s what kind of mindset I’m going through. I’ve got to force them to let them know that I’m here, that I’m trying to win like the rest of us. When I go in, I’m drawing blood.”

He certainly did that in Tuesday night’s 102-94 win over the still-winless New Orleans Pelicans at the Golden1 Center, scoring nine points to go with three rebounds as well as blocking three shots, all of this while playing only 12 minutes.

After dropping four straight, the Kings, who never trailed against the Pelicans, have now won two consecutive games. In addition, the Kings will spend the next couple of weeks breaking in their brand-new arena, as six of their next seven games are going to be at home.

Arron Afflalo is another King whose role has been known to fluctuate during his NBA career, but he also spearheaded his team’s surge past New Orleans in the game’s final moments. The Pelicans had closed the gap to five points, but Afflalo converted a four-point play with 45.2 seconds left to give the Kings enough cushion to send the home fans happy.

“For me, it’s trying to adjust to how to be efficient, and not get frustrated by lack of rhythm, and just try to play through it to help my team,” Afflalo said. “I can’t really come into the game with expectations, because there might be a game where I get 15, 20 shots, and there might be a game where I get five shots.

“My goal is to make the best out of it.”

DeMarcus Cousins won’t have to worry about having his role diminish at any point. The All-Star center led the Kings with 28 points on 11-of-20 shooting. He also pulled down four rebounds to go along with four assists, a pair of steals and two blocked shots.

Rudy Gay, who struggled with his shot early on, got things going in the second half and finished with 21 points while making seven of his 16 shots.

Pelicans star Anthony Davis led all scorers with 34 points while E’Twaun Moore added 13 of his own. Rookie Buddy Hield had 14 points for New Orleans, but he struggled from the field for most of the night, as the majority of his scoring came in the final minute as the Kings were simply trying to run down the clock and were intent on not fouling.

Meanwhile, the Kings welcomed back point guard Darren Collison, who was suspended for the first eight games of this season due to a domestic-abuse case against him.

He began to put his handprints on the game in the second half, hitting his first shot of the season late in the third quarter with a 3-pointer from the right wing and followed that up moments later with another basket. He finished with nine points along with four assists and a pair of steals.

NOTES: In a bit of a weird twist of events, the two teams went into the locker room for halftime and came out for the start of the second half, only to find out that the officials had put 20 seconds back on the clock.

As a result, the teams played the remainder of the first half and then quickly switched baskets afterwards.